


amicus verus rara avis

by leslieknopedanascully



Series: the raven cycle - missing scenes [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Book 4: The Raven King, Canon Compliant, Coming Out, Missing Scene, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-14 22:31:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20608409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leslieknopedanascully/pseuds/leslieknopedanascully
Summary: Missing scene fromThe Raven King. It's a night for truth, and while Gansey and Adam discuss the meaning of love, Ronan and Blue have a heart-to-heart of their own.“How are you so...cheery? We’ve spent the evening trying to figure out how to defeat a demon and you’re whistling and laughing like…like…” Blue was too exhausted to come up with an image to complete her metaphor.A grin crept across Ronan’s face.“Like I kissed someone a couple hours ago?”“Weirdly specific example, but sure.”





	amicus verus rara avis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [batbobbles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/batbobbles/gifts).

> hi i know it's bad form to post something new when i have an unfinished multi-chapter fic sitting around but the inspiration for this hit and it was all i could think about so i had to write it. for those of who have been keeping up with "in somnis veritas" i promise chapter four is in the works so stay tuned :)

It was a night for truth, and the weight of all the revelations, of the reality what they were facing, felt as painful and persistent as Blue’s aching eye, her aching head, her aching heart.

She headed into the kitchen, leaving Gansey and Adam behind in living room. Ronan followed her, jostling her with his hip. Blue called him an asshole, and when he laughed in response she felt torn between amusement and irritation.

As soon as they entered the kitchen, the Orphan Girl burst forth from one of the cupboards under the counter, causing an avalanche of pots and pans to clatter onto the tile floor. Ronan scolded her, but it was a half-hearted reprimand spoken through laughter. Ignoring Ronan’s instruction to pick up her mess, the Orphan Girl danced around Ronan’s legs as he rummaged through a drawer.

Ferocious Ronan, with his lanky, muscular build and his fearsome tattoo snaking out from the neck of his shirt, should have looked out of place among the warm wood finishes and the pastel decor of the kitchen. But Blue had never seen him look so _in_ place. More than that, he looked _happy_. Blue realized, as she watched Ronan open the freezer and begin dropping ice cubes into a Ziplock bag, that he was whistling a tune that sounded vaguely Celtic.

Ronan grabbed a dishtowel from where it hung on the oven handle and wrapped it around the bag of ice. Behind him, the door to the freezer still hung open. He offered the ice pack to Blue, a gesture that was so unexpected that Blue could do nothing but stare at the checkered dishtowel.

“For your eye,” Ronan explained. 

“Oh.” Kindness from Ronan still surprised her. She accepted the ice pack and pressed it to her face, the coolness bringing almost instant relief to her aching eye. “Thanks.” 

Before closing the freezer, Ronan grabbed another ice cube and tossed it to the Orphan Girl. Almost as soon as the girl put the ice cube in her mouth, she spat it back out.

“_Too cold!_” She screeched as the rejected snack skittered across the floor.

Ronan laughed. He looked at Blue, clearly expecting her to also find humor in the Orphan Girl’s discovery of ice, but Blue was not amused. She narrowed her eyes at Ronan.

“Oh come on.” Ronan said, “It’s just ice. She’s fine. She tried to eat _nails_ yesterday.” 

But it wasn’t on behalf of the Orphan Girl that Blue was annoyed.

“How are you so..._cheery_? We’ve spent the evening trying to figure out how to defeat a _demon_ and you’re whistling and laughing like…like…” Blue was too exhausted to come up with an image to complete her metaphor.

A grin crept across Ronan’s face.

“Like I kissed someone a couple hours ago?”

“Weirdly specific example, but sure.”

Ronan’s grin grew wider.

“Seriously, what’s going on with you?” Blue said.

Ronan arched an eyebrow.

“Maybe I did kiss someone.” 

“Uh-huh. Yeah, okay.” Blue said with a roll of her eyes. 

“So you believe me when I say I dreamt up a magical forest, but me kissing someone is unbelievable?”

“Honestly,” Blue said, “yeah.” 

“Ouch. That hurts, maggot.”

“But _who_? We’ve been here all evening_._”

Ronan’s grin grew impossibly wider and Blue fought the urge to smack him.

“If I tell you,” Ronan said, “you might be jealous.”

“_Gansey_?” Blue said, now fully convinced that Ronan was messing with her. 

Ronan wrinkled his nose in disgust.

“Gross. No.”

“You know, you don’t have to be so immature about the suggestion of kissing another boy. It’s not _gross_—”

Ronan rolled his eyes.

“I’m not being homophobic; it’s gross because it’s _Gansey_.”

“Even if that’s the case, you’re still perpetuating homophobic attitudes—”

“Spare me the lecture, Sargent. I’m the gay one here.”

Blue blinked.

“What?”

“I’m gay.”

Though he spoke in a familiar Ronan manner, all arrogant bravado, Blue noticed a small hitch in his voice, a pause that would have been imperceptible to anyone who didn’t know Ronan. Just the slightest breath between _g_ and _ay_ that made Blue wonder if this was the first time he had said that combination of words out loud. 

“You…._really_?”

“Now who needs the lecture about perpetuating homophobic attitudes?”

Blue barely registered Ronan teasingly turning her words on her. The past year was replaying in fast forward in her mind, and suddenly Ronan kissing someone no longer seemed so unlikely.

“It was Adam, wasn’t it?”

Ronan didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Not with words. His smile was enough. It was his usual shark-like grin, all teeth and smugness. The difference was the joyful glint in his eyes, the softness in his voice when he finally said, “Yeah.”

Blue felt a pang of jealousy. Not because of her past with Adam, which was surely what Ronan had been referring to with his needling remark. No, she was jealous that he was able to revel in the joy of kissing the boy he liked.

But she didn’t let her jealousy show. She couldn’t. Seeing him standing there, so unabashedly happy, it was impossible to do anything but mirror back that happiness.

“And Adam…” Blue raised her eyebrows. She spoke in the conspiratorial whisper that has its origins in clandestine corners of school playgrounds where it’s safe to whisper about crushes and _like_ liking someone. “Does he feel the same way?”

Ronan shrugged. He tugged at one of the leather bands on his wrist. 

“He kissed me back.”

Seeing him standing there in his childhood home, so happy and vulnerable, Blue thought she could almost picture the younger, carefree, curly haired boy Gansey described meeting when he first arrived in Henrietta.

“Well that sounds pretty promising to me.”

“Yeah.”

The events of the past year were still playing out in Blue’s mind, and as she remembered all of her interactions with Ronan the previous spring yet another realization clicked into place.

Now it was Blue’s turn to smirk.

“You were jealous of me, weren’t you? When Adam and I were together?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake—”

“You _were_!”

A little girl with hooves was sitting under the kitchen table two feet away from Blue and somehow the most ridiculous thing that had happened to her all day was the realization that Ronan Lynch had been jealous of her for holding Adam Parrish’s hand. She began to laugh.

“Don’t let it go to your head, Sargent.”

“Oh, come on, let me have this. It’s only fair after you were such an ass to me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever,” Ronan said with a roll of his eyes. But he was still smiling and Blue knew that he wasn’t as annoyed as he was letting on.

“You should ask him out on a proper date,” Blue said. “When this is all over. Maybe Gansey and I could come too, make it a double date. Dinner and a movie, the whole thing.”

“You mean the four of us searching for a dead Welsh king together isn’t sexy enough for you?”

Blue snorted.

“As romantic as this whole experience has been, it might be nice to do something normal, assuming this all ends well and—”

_And Gansey lives._

The clause lodged itself in Blue’s throat, as thick and vile as mucus. Though she couldn’t utter the words, the sentiment hung heavy and loud in the air between her and Ronan.

The cheerful Ronan of a moment earlier hardened into the sharp-edged boy whom Blue was more familiar with. She remembered when he walked into 300 Fox Way with Gansey and Adam a year earlier, how he struck her as the type of person who cared for no one. How wrong she had been. When he spoke now, the harshness of his tone and the severity of his gaze did not intimidate her--she could read in his intensity his love for Gansey. 

“He’s not going to die,” Ronan said. “We’ll find a way. And this time next week the four of us are going to get shitty pizza at Nino’s and you and Gansey can share a milkshake and make googly eyes at each other.” He met her eyes with an icy, determined gaze. “That’s a promise, Sargent.”

“Yeah,” Blue said, not necessarily because she believed him, but because she needed to believe him. She forced a smile. “But not Nino’s, okay? I"ve spent too much time in that kitchen, and the smell makes me nauseous.”

“Fuck Nino’s then. You can pick the place.”

Blue smiled a bit more easily.

“Okay. It’s a plan.”

Ronan offered Blue his fist, and Blue just stared at it for a beat. When she finally realized what this gesture meant, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She made a fist and knocked it against Ronan’s scabbed knuckles. The exchange seemed to her all at once boyish and ridiculous and profoundly heartfelt. Ronan smiled at her, and Blue indulgently let herself hope that maybe everything would be all right in the end.


End file.
